Gardening tasks and activities have always proven to be highly intensive and physically demanding. The actions and operations needed to manually undertake raking, shoveling, transferring, and the like, lawn debris (such as mulch, leaves, mown grass, etc.) require repetitive motions that are rather strenuous on the muscles of the body. Continuous movements of the same basic type in order to accomplish lawn care services have thus proven to cause various injuries from strained and torn muscles (in various regions of the body) to carpal tunnel problems and even back damage, particularly with the typical need to bend in different directions and to lift differing weights with a long handle. If a person is already injured, with, for instance, reduced movement capability in his or her arms, such activities are, with the current tools and implements available for such purposes, incredibly difficult, as well.
Notably, for instance, pitchfork-type implements needed to manipulate, shovel, push, and transport mulch, hay, and yard debris, at least, are configured with a straight handle and a multi-tined fork structure that is generally aligned at a minimal angle and/or arc at the base of the handle portion. Such a configuration thus allows for reach by the user (through the long, straight handle) and the tined structure allows for access beneath target mulch and/or lawn or yard debris, at least, in order to lift and transport such materials (as well as pick apart clumped materials through the insertion and manipulation of the tines). The problem with this commonly configured pitchfork-type implement is that the access point is set a specific distance and angle from the user. In order to adjust the capability and capacity of such a tool to allow for greater leverage and stability for greater loads of transferred materials, as well as reduce the stress on the user's back due to such a specific angle, the user must adjust his or her stance and/or location of grip on the handle. In either situation, the effort needed to properly pick up and move such loads with the typical straight-handled, minimally angled tine structure pitchfork-like implement is inordinately high such that the repetitive actions followed to transfer the necessary amounts of mulch, hay, yard debris, (and the like) through required actions (e.g., shoveling, lifting, moving, and delivering motions) to accomplish the entire target chore at hand, lead quite easily to exhaustion and, as noted above, potential injury (instant or chronic). Thus, an implement of this type that could reduce the stress on the user (muscular and otherwise) during actual operations while still permitting delivery of the maximum amount of materials in trustworthy fashion would be quite desirable.
Furthermore, as alluded to above, individuals that have injured or weakened their muscular system (such as through strains or even muscle tears or even broken bones, for instance) are certainly more susceptible to further complications if such typical gardening (landscaping) implements are utilized. In essence, such persons are at the mercy of the standard completely straight handled tools (whether rakes, shovels, pitchforks, and the like), thereby necessarily having to utilize such implements at potentially difficult angles and stances to accommodate for the awkward positions and grips associated with completely straight-handled tools. Again, such repetitive motions within the strictures of these operations can lead to greater levels of injury.
There have been very few modifications to such straight-handled implements within the gardening/landscaping tool art, ostensibly because of the simplicity of manufacture involved. Of the rare modifications to such standard structures, the only types that have been provided from an ergonomic perspective for the user have involved sharp-angled portions that provide a direct lead to a level fork (or rake) end structure or long and broad convex curves within the actual handle itself. In terms of the sharp-angled types, such modified implements include the initial straight handle component, but then include a sharp angle at the handle base that leads to the tool end (and in “convex” relation to the tool)(as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,563 to Dutcher). This specific structure is associated solely with rake implements and, as such, are limited in actual usefulness to a straight raking operation alone. Additionally, however, the tool end is provided at a straight edge aligned with the direction and plane of the tailing end of the angle. Thus, although there is provided some degree of modification that allows for differing grips and/or stances by the user to generate potentially greater leverage during actual use, the flattened tool structure end actually limits the versatility of the implement as the user must still compensate for the straight-edge portions, even if an angle is present disposing both the handle and the tool ends in different planes. Additionally, such a configuration as in Dutcher cannot be utilized for any other type of implement other than a rake; such a tool would not provide any benefits in terms of improved shoveling, lifting, transferring, and the like, activities.
The other type, with the convex handle itself, as in WO1989/011213A1 to Cederqvist, is limited to a broad curvature portion to reduce muscular strain for a user during gardening, etc., activities, apparently. Such a structure, however, creates not only difficulty to the user to view the target materials involved (since the curved extends upward and impedes the sight line of the user) but requires the user to place his or her hands along a raised handle (with differing heights at each location) to manipulate the implement itself. Additionally, such a curved handle does not take into consideration any connections at the tool portion interface, only at the handle portion. Thus, there is limited benefit provided with such structural modifications, and all to convex adjustments.
As such, even though some ergonomic implements have been proposed in the past, there still remains a distinct need for implements of this type that accord greater mobility, range of motion, and capacity to carry and transport such materials quickly and effectively wherein the user can adjust his or her leverage easily and accordingly without need for drastic muscular accommodations. In such a manner, then, not only would such an ergonomic result actually be provided this industry, but also a means for such a user to reduce the time and effort required to complete such manual and, generally, strenuous tasks, which, in turn, reduces the time needed for such actual strenuous activities overall.
Thus, there remains a significant problem that has yet to be properly addressed within the gardening/landscaping manual tool industry. To date, as noted above, the only remedies to these straight-handled implements have focused on angled linkages between the handle and the tool structure which do not accord the requisite degree of ergonomic relief necessary (and such angled elements also encumber certain manipulation procedures, rather than actually help in such a respect). Importantly, then, the present invention overcomes each of these noted deficiencies.